Modern, appealing design language, with a notch-based tall display, that is uncommon to see at this price point

Good build quality

The 6.2-inch HD+ display is pretty decent, and has good brightness levels (though colours on screen look somewhat washed out and don't pop as much as one would like, and the resolution is on the low side too)

ColorOS UI adds some useful features like Face Unlock, and Game Space (which, kicks in when you're playing games and enhances the graphics and offloads some memory so that you have a smooth gaming experience)

Decent loudspeaker

The highlight of the phone is its stellar battery life - you will get a good two days of battery life on average use

Nice, minimalistic design - the front is absolutely clean and bereft of physical controls, the bezels are tiny and the design brings the attention on content instead of the hardware

Slim and light

Good looking 18:9 edge-to-edge display - which has also allowed OPPO to install a larger 5.7-inch display into the footprint of a much smaller screen - the entire phone for that matter has a small footprint that fits comfortably in your hand and feels fantastic at it

Over at the back too, the OPPO A83 exudes a premium look - despite being made of plastic, the phone looks and feels great - the sides of the phone gently curve over to the front and end in a ridged edge - this makes the phone sit comfortably in the palm while making it easy to get a grip with your fingers

The OPPO A83 runs the ColorOS UI over Android - it's pretty decent and very similar to iOS in a lot of regards

Good speed/performance, comparable to Snapdragon 625 phones - day to day usability is smooth, and generally, the phone performs well whatever you throw at it

Good front camera - takes pretty good selfies under most conditions - and has a AI driven 'beauty' engine

Good battery life - will last a full day of use - and comparable overall to its top competitors - the Mi A1 and the Moto G5S Plus

On the whole, the OPPO A83 is an interesting and stylish competitor to the Mi A1 and the Moto G5S Plus, and definitely worth a second glance

2-minute Review [Negatives]

The rear panel smudges quite easily and is a fingerprint magnet, forcing you to wipe it clean multiple times during the day (you might want to use a case)

ColorOS UI is not the most refined Android UI - it is on the heavy side, and can be inconsistent and unintuitive at places (for instance there is the inability to swipe to remove notifications - you're forced to swipe left on a notification and tap the delete option every time you want to clear your notifications, which is quite time consuming)

Performance is just about ok - the combination of the middling Snapdragon 450, the limited 2GB RAM, and a heavy ColorOS UI, means that there is the occasional stuttering and lags and things don't quite move as fluidly as you would hope

Average dual camera setup on the rear - the bokeh pictures come out ok, but generally colours are not very accurate, and the camera often overexposes or over-saturates the colours, and autofocus is on the slow side

The selfie camera is pretty average too - in broad daylight you may capture workable selfies, but the quality indoors and in low-light is very low

No fast charging support

On the whole, the A3s is a decent device on its own, especially because of it's stellar battery life, but its average cameras and performance will pull it back a little - it will find it difficult to compete with it's own cousin for instance, the Realme 1, which offers much more for a similar price - and if one is keen on getting a notched display, then the Honor 9N will again offer tough competition, with a higher resolution display, at a similar price point

The side volume keys and power button tend to wobble a little

Supports the old mircoUSB standard, instead of the modern USB-C standard

There is also no fingerprint scanner here, and although there is decent face unlock functionality, its not the best in low light, or if you are not looking straight into the camera - when it doesn’t work, you’re back to using the plain old passcode

The display quality is decent, but the resolution could certainly have been better

Rear cameraperformance in low light is average

Expert Reviews

Priced too close to the Realme 1, which offers much more for this price